(Newswire.net — December 22, 2015) — Falcon 9’s first launching, deployed 11 communication satellites after which it landed vertically at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, according to AFP.
The rocket’s engines burned a bright orange light on the dark sky Monday night, then minutes after launching, the Falcon 9 made a graceful arc back to Earth and touched down upright.
“The Falcon has landed”, exclaimed a commentator referring to people assembled at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Space X is owned by the Internet tycoon Elon Musk. The company is trying to revolutionize the rocket industry, which is losing millions of dollars because of the rejection of sophisticated missile component after each launch.
“I still can not believe we made it. This is a revolutionary moment,” Elon Musk said in a teleconference after the landing. He added that this is the first time that the rocket had returned intact.
Previous attempts to land the Falcon 9 on June 2015 failed – the rocket broke up two minutes after takeoff.
Musk said that after that failure, the “Space X” company experts fixed the problem and made the newest version of the Falcon 9 about 30 percent more powerful than the previous rocket.
The US space agency NASA congratulated the company on this project. “Congratulations @SpaceX on your successful vertical landing of the first stage back on Earth!” , representatives of NASAwrote on their Twitter account.
A Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield also congratulated Space X” on their success, The Telegraph reports. He wrote on Twitter, “That was a hard landing to stick. It opens a brand new door to space travel. I look forward to the details”.
This landing is an incredible achievement because the industry is seeking to lower costs and make space flight cheaper and more available to tourists and adventurers.